I love a good vampire movie. Give me one with a new twist on the mythology (synthetic blood!) or a classic stake-through-the-heart chiller and I’m usually sucked in, just don’t crap it up with a lot of romance… or moody teens.

“Daybreakers” (in theaters January 8, 2010) looks pretty slick. I like that the earth is  now bloodsuckers only (nice twist) who are faced with a dwindling blood supply. The wealthy and powerful scheme for their survival while a small group of less-evil vampires — armed with a cure — prepare for battle. Sure, the renegade fearless vampire killers device has been done to death, but that’s what I love about the genre. It takes a village… to kill the undead.

In any warring vamp flick, you need a bad-ass crossbow-slinging, quip-tossing, dusty old vet like the iconic Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) or Jack Crow (James Wood) to lead you into combat (with lots of gadgets of course). In “Daybreakers,” Willem Dafoe fits that bill nicely, Billy D. does no wrong in my book.

Regarding the rest of the team, I’m always excited to see who gets to play the super dweeby computer genius (Remember Patton Oswalt in Blade Trinity?) and also pick out which expendable members will be killed early (overly brazen always leads to buried) and which favorite will sadly be killed near the end doing something selflessly heroic to save the others (pretty sure Ethan Hawke will eat it in the end of this one, hopefully his goatee will survive).

Yes, it’s all quite expected and a tad predictable, but I crave it. FYI, If I was part of the team, I would spend most of my time putting together a real cool outfit (lots of zippers and pockets for antidotes, knives and snacks) and of course, looking for places to hide.

Trailer Music: Placebo’s  “Running Up That Hill” is a bit over-dramatic (going for that the “Donnie Darko” Gary Jules “Mad World” cover vibe), but It works well here, giving some contrasting emotional heft to all the explosions, beheadings and blood spewing action.

For one reason or another, I am not a fan of the most popular vampire flicks (“From Dusk Till Dawn,” “Interview With the Vampire,” “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”), the latter two seemed a more interested in the costumes than the content and the former, well, if Tarantino is acting, I’m not watching.

My Recommended Vampire Movies:

• Let the Right One In (2008) – A quiet, minimal, touching Norwegian child vampire film containing  scenes that will haunt you til the day you die. Good lord.
• John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998) – Very fun and insanely gory old-school ghoul hunting with the best vampire party-crashing scene ever.
• Ultraviolet (1998) – Excellent 6-hour British miniseries about modern, hi-tech vampires. I was so depressed when it ended, I wanted more.
• Fright Night (1985) – “When a teenager learns that his next door neighbor is a vampire, no one will believe him!”
• Blade (1998) & Blade II (2002) – Hate to admit it, but I even liked the third one… but not as much as these two killer flicks.
• Shadow of the Vampire (2000) – The film captures the making of the classic “Nosferatu” with method actor Schreck (Willem Dafoe) taking it a bit (or bite) too seriously.
• Salem’s Lot (1979) -  Cheesy but solid mini-series from Stephen King about a New England town teeming with vamps.
• The Forsaken (2001) – On paper, this studly youth-filled vampire flick would be dismissed as One Tree Hill with fangs, but it actually works well.
• Near Dark (1987) – Worth it just for the bar room scene.
• Dracula 2000 (2000) – Bloody good mindless  fun with Gerard Butler doing a decent Dracula.
• Underworld (2003) – A leather-clad Kate Beckinsale teams up with a cute werewolf who just broke up with Felicity to fight some baddies.  What’s not to like?
• The Lost Boys (1987) – The last good thing The Coreys and Kiefer Sutherland ever appeared in.